[Case Study] Mr. Portland Keeps His Vacation Rental Business Strong

The building up of the sharing economy has enabled anybody to get started on his or her own business. Maybe getting their feet wet first with Airbnb or VRBO, homeowners are seeking independence from listing sites to develop their own businesses and brands, much like a hotel. For some owners, a few vacation rental properties comprise all of one’s income. Others, however, still balance a full-time career alongside their round-the-clock enterprise of managing inquiries and reservations.

Enter Gary Beckler, who operates the Portland Piedmont Guesthouse in Portland, OR. Gary has been renting out rooms in his 1925 Craftsman Bungalow home since 2010. Not too long after this, his success with renting out single rooms inspired him to start renting out the entire property in the group market.

When Gary, known to some guests as Mr. Portland, isn’t operating his vacation rental home, he also works full-time job that consumes a lot of his time. Running his vacation rental business alongside his job created a conflict. “I thought I would lose my job over this,” said Gary. “I could have potentially lost my job over this. If you have a full-time job and are running another business on the side, you run a risk of getting in trouble with your work.”

But Gary discovered a solution for his business. Having worked with OneRooftop since 2013, Mr. Portland upgraded his plan to full-service, thus making use of OneRooftop’s dedicated reservation specialists that provide professional inquiry management every day of the year, including holidays. When Gary receives an inquiry, OneRooftop’s reservation team will answer on his behalf to turn inquiries into bookings.

With OneRooftop’s help, Gary is able to run his vacation rental business and maintain high occupancy rates of about 50-60 bookings per year, which ranks Portland Piedmont Guesthouse in the top 5% on VRBO. Monitoring his website traffic frequently, Gary has detected that on average he gets an inquiry for every 100 page views.

OneRooftop is able to respond to these inquiries within 15 minutes and transform them into real bookings.

What does Gary have to say about this?

“Outsourcing inquiry management to OneRooftop allows me to catch reservations that I wouldn’t ever be able to respond to during the work day.”

Gary Beckler told OneRooftop that the full-service option is about efficiency and sustaining good business. Learn more about how OneRooftop’s reservation specialists can help your vacation rental business.